Report: David Tepper’s deal to buy Panthers to be signed today

Even with some thinking the value of sports teams is about to skyrocket with the addition of potential gambling revenues, the sale of the Panthers is proceeding as planned.

According to Seth Wickersham and Adam Schefter of ESPN, Steelers minority partner David Tepper is expected to sign the deal to buy the Panthers from Jerry Richardson today.

That keeps the transaction on track to be approved at the owners meeting in Atlanta next week.

Tepper didn’t lodge the high bid in the process, but he did have the biggest stack of cash, and the blessing of a group of owners who had already invited him into their club. And with Richardson still being investigated for workplace misconduct after last year’s reports of sexual and racial harassment, that gave the league a bit of leverage to nudge the process in a certain direction.

There were reports that other bids were in the $2.5 billion range, while Tepper’s was in the $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion range.

Lawyers were still going through the final points of the sale yesterday in Charlotte, and no speed bumps are expected in the deal.

Every NFL franchise is going to be worth many more billions as soon as gambling on sports becomes legal across the nation. Betting on the NFL games has already been a huge industry, and it’s going to get much, much bigger very soon. Tepper is getting a great bargain.

Wasn’t Jimmy Haslam a minority owner of the Steelers before he bought the Browns? Not saying that we can expect Tepper to have serious legal problems, but still – what’s this pipeline between minority Steeler owners being granted full majority ownership status of their own NFL franchise?

If the only commonality you’re aware of between Haslam and Tepper is that they’ve both been minority owners of the Steelers, probably should do some more homework before commenting. Their backgrounds are pretty different from each other.

He will definitely be giving up his minority ownership of the Steelers to do this. Joe Gibbs had to give up his minority ownership of the Falcons to even return to the Redskins as President/GM/Head Coach a decade ago.

Damn, I hope the last minority owner from the Steelers isn’t a sign of things to come for my Panthers;-). Thinking of the poor Browns is why I was hoping for the guy who owns the steel company. Please let Tepper have learned more from the Rooneys than Haslam did.

What’s up with all the wacky comments about Diddy? No one who understands the NFL or this sale process ever thought he was a credible lead owner. Not wealthy enough.
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Because him and Kaepernick were going to round up a bunch of their “investors”, to buy the team and use it as a protester breeding ground. Obviously, they’ve never been to North Carolina, lol.